New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper • Hacker News Board

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#261

Post by ZekeSulastin » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #117

Galanwe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10G DACs are no cheaper than cat6, which is perfectly fine for 10G at most practical distances. Considering the target audience of these cards it seems pretty obvious to me that letting users "just buy a cat 6 cable" is miles more reasonable than having them buy a transceiver or DAC. As for allowing to switch to fiber, that just seems orthogonal again to what these USB NICs are for, not to mention the SFP+ itself is…

DACs are very cheap (second hand and AliExpress) and they never use much W. If both machines are near each other though (which a DAC cable implies) and both run Linux and both support Thunderbolt, you might be better off with a direct ethernet over TB connection. Whether macOS supports such, I don't know. The other side will then also need a low power NIC (of which fiber and DAC over SFP+ are less power hungry). What…

I just wish someone would come out with a PCIE 4x1 capable card with SFP - my main desktop’s non-GPU expansion slots are all 4x1 electrically and even the one you linked is a 3x2. As far as I can tell the only 4x1 cards available are RTL8127 or AQC113 RJ45 ones :(

I suppose an NVME riser is also an option, albeit janky.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#262

Post by izacus » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #115

izacus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll notice a difference between USB 3.1 and 3.2 2x2?

All I know is that I pick up some cables they work for some things and then I try to use them for other things and they don't work. Isn't the whole point of the USB standard to make it so you don't have to be a super nerd to plug stuff together? People just want to transfer data from their phone or camera to a laptop without navigating spec sheets.

But that's not really true is it? Things will work just fine, albeit slower. There's just a few devices that won't.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#263

Post by dcrazy » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

drcongo wrote: post #204

reaperducer wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB is just a complete mess. You have to go out of your way to make Apple's Lightning connector look sensible, but somehow the USB consortium has managed to do it.

I miss lightning. Cleanable with a toothpick and some compressed air. The USB-C port on my current iPhone is now compacted with pocket lint and I can't seem to clean it out.

Toothpick and compressed air works for my phone.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#264

Post by aggregator-ios » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

For those that read the article and are still confused (as I was) about what Apple hardware would give you the full 10GbE speeds:

- 10GbE Thunderbolt adapter is still the best. Full symmetrical 10GbE on laptops as far back as the 2018 MacBook Pro 13" (Intel) and every laptop since. Including the Airs starting with the M1 chip (Not sure about Neo).

- No Apple hardware supports the 3.2 v2x2 standard (20Gbps) and your connection will be downgraded to 10Gbps on these RTL8159 chips. Because of processing overhead, you will only get 5-7Gbps of total Ethernet throughput.

- Upgraded Mac Mini or Apple Studio base models have builtin 10GbE ports

For now, thunderbolt adapters are still the most reliable 10GbE for Apple laptops.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#265

Post by chaz6 » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 6:01 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #134

nasretdinov wrote: post #121

10 GbE sits in a really weird spot for me, maybe I'm just not understanding something though. It's at most 1.25 GB/sec of bandwidth, yet it's relatively quite expensive. It's not sufficient bandwidth for getting good performance out of most SSDs, yet it's really excessive for any hard drives (except for RAID10 setups I guess). For SSDs you want thunderbolt (or 40+ GbE) connection for best latency and performance, and…

10 Gb is cheap! Mikrotik has a 4x10Gb + 1x1Gb port switch for $150 USD and an 8x10Gb version for about $275. I have the 8 port version. SFP+'s and fiber are cheap, like maybe 50 bucks for the SFP+ set and fiber. 10Gb PCIe cards are maybe ~$50 new on Amazon with Intel chips and cheaper on eBay - I bought used 10 Gb Mellanox cards for $25 each - "they just work" under FreeBSD and Linux. Copper 10 Gb used to consume waa…

I got an 8 port SFP+ managed switch from AliExpress for $100!

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#266

Post by wolvoleo » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

I remember getting my first laptop with gigabit ethernet in 2005, more than 20 years ago! I'm surprised 10gbit is still so uncommon and eyewateringly expensive. And I don't just mean the adapters which are coming down in price finally but also the switches. For more than 10 years we've had semi managed gigabit switches for 25€ like the TP-SG108E. 10gbit is still crazy expensive. Even though it is quite needed these days for fast transfers from computer to computer, the old "your harddrive won't keep up anyway" excuse is no longer valid.

I still have max 10 gbit here and I'd have to replace 3 switches at least so it won't be coming soon. The 2.5 and 5 options are too meh for me to be interesting.

I hope the arrival of these new chips will increase the number of systems with 10g it and then hopefully the prices of switches will come down too.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#267

Post by wolvoleo » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

aggregator-ios wrote: post #264

For those that read the article and are still confused (as I was) about what Apple hardware would give you the full 10GbE speeds: - 10GbE Thunderbolt adapter is still the best. Full symmetrical 10GbE on laptops as far back as the 2018 MacBook Pro 13" (Intel) and every laptop since. Including the Airs starting with the M1 chip (Not sure about Neo). - No Apple hardware supports the 3.2 v2x2 standard (20Gbps) and your c…

> 10GbE Thunderbolt adapter is still the best. Full symmetrical 10GbE on laptops as far back as the 2018 MacBook Pro 13" (Intel) and every laptop since. Including the Airs starting with the M1 chip (Not sure about Neo).

The neo doesn't have thunderbolt at all so no, that won't fly.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#268

Post by MisterTea » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #175

MisterTea wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 Gb is cheap! Mikrotik has a 4x10Gb + 1x1Gb port switch for $150 USD and an 8x10Gb version for about $275. I have the 8 port version. SFP+'s and fiber are cheap, like maybe 50 bucks for the SFP+ set and fiber. 10Gb PCIe cards are maybe ~$50 new on Amazon with Intel chips and cheaper on eBay - I bought used 10 Gb Mellanox cards for $25 each - "they just work" under FreeBSD and Linux. Copper 10 Gb used to consume waa…

10 Gb is cheap! … $150 … $275. San Francisco checking in.

It's not that much considering people pay $100+ for cable/internet and/or >=$(15 * n) streaming services PER month. Some people might want faster transfer speeds or low latency. For the price of two or three months of internet and streaming/cable you get a very fast LAN if you so desire. If you don't need it then don't spend the money.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#269

Post by wolvoleo » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

drcongo wrote: post #204

reaperducer wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB is just a complete mess. You have to go out of your way to make Apple's Lightning connector look sensible, but somehow the USB consortium has managed to do it.

I miss lightning. Cleanable with a toothpick and some compressed air. The USB-C port on my current iPhone is now compacted with pocket lint and I can't seem to clean it out.

It had a pretty bad flaw: the spring contacts being on the device side, causing wear and tear there.

USB-C moved those to the much cheaper to replace cable. The little strip in the middle makes cleaning a bit harder but does provide for more longevity. It's s necessary evil in order to have the spring contacts on the plug side as well as not having them exposed to touch.

I think the plug side of USB is pretty well designed. The problem is more with the electrical and signalling side and the marketing of the different versions.

Re: New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper

#270

Post by post-it » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #53

All these USB version names. I used to know what they all meant, but then the USB IF went ahead and renamed them all and made a bunch of versions have the same name and renamed some versions to have the same name as the old name of other versions. I have absolutely no idea what anyone means when they say USB 3.2 gen 2x2. I used to know what USB 3.2 meant but it's certainly not that.

I will say, casual users don't really care. Pretty much any combination of a wall plug and a cable will charge a phone at acceptable speeds, and that's all 99% of people need.